PANKOW

There are two bands called Pankow: 1. A italian/german 80s-90s industrial/electronic band from Florence. 2. A German 80-90s rock band from East Berlin (former DDR).

Pankow (1) is an Italian band, for a time part of the Wax Trax! stable of industrial artists. It was actually a european duo based in Florence, Italy whose core consists of multi-instrumentalist/sample manipulator Maurizio Fasolo and German vocalist Alex Spalck.

Dark and nihilistic in the extreme, as well as intermittently scatological, Pankow surfaced 1983, performing live for the first time and releasing their first material on tape. A selftitled four track EP “Pankow” (Kindergarten Records) with the tracks “God’s Deneuve”, “Cross In My Heart”, “Das Wodkachaos” and “English Waitresses” was released 1984…

“Freiheit Für Die Sklaven” in 1987 is their first full album, though containing a few covers, like Prince’s “Girls & Boys” and David Lynch’s “In Heaven (everything is fine)” (from the movie “Eraserhead”) and with cover art of H.R. Giger, an early fan of the band. Giger would return to collaborate on music videos for the band. From this time their records were released on the labels Contempo as well as Wax Trax!.

The EP “Freedom for the Slaves” was released in 1989 followed by the first proper album “Gisela”. This album contained a cover of The Normal’s “Warm Leatherette,” as well as the notorious “Me and My Ding Dong,” which musically updated the sensibility of Chuck Berry’s “My Ding-a-Ling.”

[biography from last.fm, click here to read the full biography on last.fm]